Religious Leaders Press Rice on Mideast

A delegation of religious leaders met with the U.S. Secretary of State to urge the country to take a more leading role in promoting peace in the Middle East.

A delegation of religious leaders met with the U.S. secretary of state to urge the country to take a more leading role in promoting peace in the Middle East.

Condoleezza Rice met six religious leaders from the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East, including the retired archbishop of Washington D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, on Monday at the State Department.

Cardinal McCarrick said the meeting was “substantive and excellent.” Rice spoke with the Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders for about 45 minutes.

Before the meeting with Rice the leaders released a statement which was signed last month by the 35 members of the leadership initiative.

The statement affirmed peace as “an essential of faith” in all three religious traditions and asserted that the United States has “an inescapable responsibility and an indispensable role to provide creative, determined leadership for building a just peace in the Middle East.”

In a letter sent to Rice, the religious leaders asked for the meeting with the secretary and acknowledged her “personal commitment to the creation of a viable, independent, and democratic Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel, with security and peace for both peoples.”